


More than Life

by BBMarcello



Category: Lost
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Mystery, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1414516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BBMarcello/pseuds/BBMarcello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sawyer's still living, that's all he can do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written around the time of Lost seasons 2-3 and posted here for posterity. This was started from a prompt by Alliecat8 of 'luck' and I just took that a step further with 'Sawyer's dumb luck'. OMCs aren't everyone's cup of tea and yep, there's a lot of similarity here to the look of Sam Winchester, fair warning.

They were all gone now.  The passing of time, strange as it was here, had seen to that.  At night, he felt their presence.  The dark came and the memories of long fingers against his skin appeared, a soft chuckle, a grab at his wrist.  Then the sun would rise and the ghosts would be chased out of his way, scooting back to the sea in sand and tears.  Celia would come around, make sure he was up, that look of ‘oh good, you’re still breathing’ just holding on for a second too long.  He’d rise and walk down to the ocean, envelope himself in salty waves, clean out the night before and distance himself enough from his mind so he could get on with the day’s work.  He was getting old, well, had been getting old, but he could still manage a good swim every day.  Now, sitting at breakfast, surrounded by laughter and Beth and Sam next to him playing cat’s cradle and bumping each other’s shoulders, he was surrounded by youth and time and what really wasn’t supposed to be here.

Namely him - he was supposed to be dead by now, bones crumbled in the ground or, at the very least, a gory mess.  But that wasn’t to be.  He’d stopped and hell, it was a gradual thing but it didn’t take a genius to notice, that the lines didn’t get any worse, the grey didn’t appear, that the youngest had overtaken him and passed on, that he was still here, fifty if a day.  Celia had been Charlie and Clare’s child, born nine months after Charlie had gone to his watery grave and now thirty-eight, older than her ma and pa and even her older brother had ever gotten to be.  After Jack, Kate and Locke had disappeared, he’d realised just how close-knit this little island had become - as romances turned into love, babies turned into teens and romances started all over again.  He looked along the table, watching everyone eat and talk, discussions on the day ahead, where the herring shoal had been spotted, who was helping with log cutting today.  Then he looked across to the next table, and the next.  Their own personal Pitcairn, forty-two of them and if that number didn’t hold some weird significance too, then he really was on the wrong island.  And here he was, damn old Father Time, not so old, but maybe truly damned.  Celia touched his shoulder and he looked up at her.

“It’s time.”

“Alright, ten minutes okay?” he asked, like she didn’t know, hadn’t known his routine for the past twenty odd years and when to come along and snap him out of it.  She smiled kindly at him all the same.

“Okay, see you in a bit.”

He pushed himself up from the table just as Dylan and Tina were clearing the breakfast things away and walked away from the laughter and the chatter and the youth.

===

Big gut-pulling tears flowed from him as he knelt over the grave, salt water coming to a rest on the sand, hand holding onto the stone like he was gonna disappear without it.  He felt her presence behind him before he was quite through but he knew she’d wait, family graves of her own to visit.  This was his time, his only time in daylight hours, when it all came out.  He knelt over Sayid’s grave and cursed him, prayed for him, wrenched his heart out for him.  Missed him.  He took one last gasping choke of air and then that was it, he was done.  He could start the day proper now.  He dried his eyes with the back of his hand and stood up, ready to face her again, all of them and the energy they were all bundled up in.


	2. Chapter 2

He’d watched him grow up amongst them, the dark haired boy.  He’d shown him how to set the fishing nets, plunge his hand into the water at just the right second to grab a grouper or a red snapper, an old crab, a slow lobster.  When he was ten, Sawyer had watched from a safe distance, open-mouthed, as the boy pulled his hand from the bee’s nest, honeycomb dripping from his fingers, walked away from the tree, smiling, not a single bee disturbing him.  He rocked him softly in his arms as, aged fourteen; his mother had started coughing, a cold that wouldn’t go away, a cancer they couldn’t cure.  He’d run from the hut where she lay dying, lashed out at Sawyer, punching his chest, screaming, eyes red, then fell against him, all puff gone out of him and Sawyer sat on the sand with him, wrapped him in his arms, cried along with him, his mother a good woman, strong too, no more.  Now he had no one, father long dead, mother now a breath of moth’s air floating.

But this was one death too far for Sawyer.  Whereas he’d been an idle curiosity before, now there was no one on his side, the accusing looks at breakfast growing longer, more hateful.  Sawyer knew it was time to leave.  With no one to back his corner, long dead rumors were running wild again – he was the cause of the deaths, why was he still alive, why hadn’t he aged, it was all his fault.

He left before first light on a Tuesday, the month or year no longer important.  Stood at the door to the boy’s bedroom for a moment too long, silently wished him well, knew everyone would look after him, knew he had to go now.

He moved deep into the jungle mountains, mindful of any weird shit that might still be around.  He hadn’t ventured so far in so long that only ghosts followed him now – Jack bitching at him, Hurley pounding him on the back, trying to get him to slow down, Sayid, so long ago now.  He found a pretty good spot, a small spring nearby, dropped his backpack and swung his axe into the nearest tree.  The shelter became a hut, the hut became a small house, the house became a home.  Time moved on, the sun rose and set, but without anyone else around, he lost track of the days, kept to the seasons, prepared for the rainy season, dripped sweat onto the pages of his books when it was so humid he couldn’t breathe, sighed through those first cracks of thunder.  He climbed trees, ran miles, long ago quit expecting something to give up to old age, a brittle bone, a cough that wouldn’t quit – nothing, body still built, full head of hair, nothing that aged him, until…

  
A muffled cry of ‘bugger’ startled him from his sleep.  He pulled a sheet round him, figuring a talking monkey at this time of day deserved some modesty on his part, rubbed his eyes as he leant against the doorframe, stretched a big yawn out.  The dawning light revealed a dark haired man on his ass in Sawyer’s front yard.  He watched as the man shook his head, untangled his foot from the lines that had been stringing some damn fine beans on them ‘till this great clodhopper had appeared.  He dusted himself off and stood up fully, eyes now startled as they met his.

“Sawyer?”

“Who were ya expectin’?  Santie Claus?”

The man tilted his head and rubbed the back of his neck, a move that brought back such memories that Sawyer had to hold on tighter to the doorframe, not quite sure why his world was slipping off its axis so early in the day.

“Sam?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.  How long?”

“Fifteen years, give or take.”

“Well, shit.”  Sawyer looked down and realised that his usual morning wood wasn’t the best thing to greet someone who he’d last seen as a boy, “hang on.”

He slipped into the bedroom and quickly dressed, a t-shirt and sarong now tatty and bleached in the sun, the hem stitched up but fraying still.  He came out of the room to see Sam sitting on the porch steps, hands on his knees, straight back, more his grandma than he’d ever know. He grabbed two bottles of water from the cooler part of the kitchen, snagging a cluster of berries as well.

“Here”, he offered a bottle to Sam and sat down next to him.

“Thanks.”

As he tilted the bottle, he sneaked a glance at Sam’s profile – strong jaw, shaggy dark hair, stubble, broad shoulders.  Jesus.  He could feel the pent-up energy thrumming off him and felt like an old boyfriend who was about to get a lecture for running off with the head cheerleader.  He wasn’t wrong.

“I figured it was time to come find you, well, figured I’d be finding your bones, didn’t expect  _this_ ,” he gestured to the house behind him, the well-kept vegetable garden in front of him.

Sawyer kept quiet, chewed a few berries, squashed one between his fingers.

“I don’t understand.  When you left, I figured you wouldn’t be gone for long, you wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t leave for good.  Then, you just didn’t come back so I figured that was it, you were dead, end of.  I just kept on going, what else could I do?”  He looked towards Sawyer, clearly not wanting an answer, blue eyes gleaming but quickly dropping his head again.  “Jesus, Sawyer, where’d you go?”

Sawyer cleared his throat, “nowhere, here, just found here and stayed put.”

Sam shook his head, took another gulp of water, muttered ‘goddammit’ under his breath.  He stood up abruptly and paced in front of Sawyer, then stopped, hands on hips, angry words desperate to spill out.

“Go ahead, I deserve it.”

“You…you…you fucking asshole!  You fucking  _left_ , Sawyer!  You left me, you left us all, you just  _left_ , no goodbye, nothing!  I was all alone, don’t you get it?  I had no fucking clue which way was up and  _you left_!”

Sawyer leaned his shoulder against the rail, “go on.”

Sam got right in his face and pulled him to his feet. 

“Why?  Why did you go?  Why…why are you so  _fucking calm_?”

Sawyer peeled Sam’s hands from his shirt and straightened it out, “first visitor in fifteen years, figure getting angry is not the way to get ya to stay for tea.”  He was on the ground in seconds, a punch to the jaw flooring him.  He rubbed his face and looked up at Sam, “feel better now?”

“Shit, no, not really”, he leant down and helped Sawyer up, “sorry.”

“No problem.  So, ya gonna leave now your misplaced anger has found its source?”

“No”, said Sam quietly.

“Good, come in, make yourself comfortable.”

======

They sat eating peaches at the kitchen table.

“So, how old are you now?”

Sam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, “twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine.  How old are you?”

Sawyer shook his head, “wish I knew.”

“So it’s true then?  What they used to say about you?  That you didn’t age?”

Sawyer winced, “ _haven’t_  aged, less of the past tense please, I ain’t dead yet.”

“But…you should be, right?”

Sawyer sighed and blew his hair out of his eyes, “yep.”

“Jesus.”

“Doubt he’s got much to do with it.  I’ve stopped thinking about it really, especially here where there’s no one to remind me.  Figured out long ago it was either the island itself or the Others or just good ole payback.”

“Payback for what?”

Sawyer looked at him and smiled sadly, “sins of thy father.”

“I remember you telling me about the Others once, when I was younger, didn’t really understand it all, no one mentioned it since.”

“Yeh, well, last man standing and all that.  Didn’t much feel like becoming the wise old oracle of the camp, some things are best left forgotten.  Moving on is something I’ve gotten pretty good at over the years and it’s been a lot of years now.”

“You moved on without me.”

“No, I didn’t.  I didn’t forget you, didn’t forget anyone that meant something to me, I just stopped mourning, just let time be my only companion, it was better that way.”

“For who?  You?  Stuck out here with no one to talk to?  No one to bitch at?”

“Partly, also better for you, I knew they’d take care of you.”  A second of guilt passed through his mind, “they did, didn’t they?”

Sam got up from the table and sat in one of the rocking chairs, “yeh, they did okay, tried their best.  I was a bit of a handful after you left.”

Sawyer leaned back in his chair, “I can imagine.  Your momma was pretty strong-willed too, helped me through some bad times, was always a good friend to me.”

Sam stopped rocking, “I miss her, still.”

“You got a lot of her in you, can see your grandparents shining through pretty strongly too, ‘cept the hair colour and the height.  Ya granddad was a midget.”

Sam looked excited at these snippets of history, “really?”

Sawyer cleared his throat and stood up to wipe the table down. 

“Look, it’s already hotter than hell now, I was gonna go for a swim today, wanna come?”

“I thought we could tal…sure, okay.”

  
The trek down to the waterhole took about an hour, long enough for the dew to steam off the trees, Sawyer pointing out different kinds of plants, birds in the higher branches of the trees.  Then a comfortable silence fell as it got too hot to talk.  Fine by Sawyer, who let his mind race more than it had in so many years.  He could feel Sam’s eyes burning into his back, knew he had a million questions to ask but he didn’t want to answer any of them.  This kid, no, this man had come back into his life and he didn’t know where to look.  He had the height of his father but the obstinacy was all Celia and Claire and somehow Sawyer had rubbed off on him too, he had left him alone and he clearly bore the scars.  He wasn’t Sam’s father but he’d done exactly what his own pa had done – abandoned him.  His newfound guilt was wrestling with another long forgotten emotion.  When Sam had pulled him up by his shirt, another heat, a far less angry one, had passed between them, something that he wasn’t going to be able to ignore for too long, not if Sam stuck around. 

They reached the pond and Sawyer stripped off and dove in.  As he surfaced, he caught a flurry of tanned skin as Sam dive-bombed in.  Still a kid in some ways then, good for him.  They swam back and forth for a while then Sawyer floated on his back while Sam got out and sat on the ground in the dappled sunlight, chin to his knees.

“Don’t you want to know?

“What?”

“What’s going on back at town?”

“Town?  Figure that one word says it all.”

“There was a boat wreck a few years back, twenty-two people made it to shore.”

“Good people?”

Sam didn’t answer.  Sawyer rolled over and swam out, lay down next to him on his back, hands behind his head.  Sam moved onto his front, hands resting under his chin, face turned to Sawyer, dark blue eyes going right through him.

“There was…someone, someone I came to like, a lot.”

“She feel the same way?”

Sam bit his bottom lip, “he did, for a while.”

Sawyer turned on his side to face him, refusing to let his eyes wander south, “he?”

“Yeh.”

“He break ya heart?”

“No, he…he told me I was already broken, that he couldn’t do enough, couldn’t put me back together.”

“Boy was clearly an asshole then.”

Sam chuckled, “thanks.  After that, I couldn’t deal with any of them anymore, moved to the edge of town, near the caves, kept myself to myself.”

Sawyer sat up, “you shouldn’t have done that, cut yourself off.  Being alone’s no good for anyone.”

Sam got up abruptly and jumped back into the water.  He surfaced and scraped his hair off his face, treading water for a moment.

“There was something else, an incident.”

“What?”

“I was out swimming one day, there were a few people swimming further down the beach.  I felt something brush past my leg so I stopped and looked around me – a big shark circled me three times.”

“Shit.  Well, it obviously wasn’t that hungry or you wouldn’t be talking to me now.”

Sam went quiet and swam to the rocks on the other side of the pond.  Sawyer dove back in and swam to him, Sam’s eyes now full of pain.

“What happened, Sam?”

“The shark left me alone, I called out to warn the others.  Next thing I knew, there was blood in the water, it killed three people.”  He was crying now, tears falling into the water.  “It wasn’t my fault Sawyer, it wasn’t, but they didn’t wanna know, they all stopped talking to me after that, think I’m a freak.”

Sawyer hugged him, “hey, shhh, you’re not a freak, okay?  It’s this place, always has been, nothing you can do about it, nothing, okay?  Hey, it’s okay, shhh, shhh.  You know, I remember when you were little, the way you used to get honey for everyone.  I just think you’ve got an affinity with all the critters here, nothing wrong with that, nothing, ya hear?”

Sam lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot, “really?”

“Yeh, really, and if they don’t see that, then fuck ‘em.  But don’t cut yourself off, Sam, okay?  Look, stay here for a while with me.  Hell, after fifteen years, ‘give or take’, I could probably use some decent conversation.”

“Yeh?”

“Hell yeh.”  He rested his forehead against Sam’s and stroked the back of his head, “come on, let’s go hunt us some lunch.”

=====

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Sawyer turned the meat over on the spit, “nah, you just sit back and relax, though you could grab the bottle by the bed.”

Sam returned to the yard with the bottle, wrinkling his nose as he sniffed its contents, “what  _is_  this?”

“Hooch, or apple cider to you.  Figured out a long time ago, man couldn’t live out here on water alone.”

“Why’s it by your bed?”

Sawyer turned back to the spit and poked the meat, mumbled “keeps the ghosts at bay.”

“What?”

Sawyer jumped at Sam’s question right behind him.  Sure wasn’t used to anything creeping up that close to him without getting a spear in it.  He turned to face him again, “helps me sleep.  Food’s ready.”

He only had the one plate, sanded into a bowl with knots round the edge cut with a knife.  They sat on the porch steps, facing the garden, Sawyer leaning against the post, dirty fingers occasionally grazing when they both went for the same piece of meat.  They passed the bottle between them.  Once they were full, Sawyer waited for the barrage of questions to begin.

“Don’t you miss it?”

“What?”

“Town.”

“Nah, it was never a town for me.  Only one place I miss going to.”

“Wher-“

“Do miss things from before though”, Sawyer cut him off.

Sam’s eyes lit up.  Sawyer had forgotten how much Sam had enjoyed hearing him talk about things pre-island.  He let his mind go back, breathed in deep, “white castles, dust beneath my feet in the heat of summer, crickets – there’s no crickets here.”

“What are white castles?”

“They’re- oh, you ass, I know I’ve told ya that before, I may be old but I ain’t senile.”

Sam smiled, “sorry, couldn’t resist.  I remember, you used to practically salivate talking about them.”

“Not much I miss from the old days but ya never lose the taste of those stomach sinkers.  It’s cooling off some, how about ya help me fix the mess you made this morning with your dramatic arrival?”

“Sure.”

  
They worked in the garden for a few hours, Sawyer pulling up carrots, Sam weeding, Sawyer lost in his thoughts again.  He realised he probably wasn’t much company for Sam, seemed to have lost the art of conversation over the years, but Sam seemed happy enough.  He realised he’d only talked about the things he missed from way, way back, when his ma and pa had still been alive and summers had held an easy thrill for him.  Sawyer the con hadn’t been in his thoughts for such a long time, maybe he was starting to forget he ever existed. 

Sam sat back on his heels and dusted off his hands on his jeans, “you’ve built a good home here, Sawyer.”

“Yeh, well, ya might not think that after a night on my floor.  I’ll sew some fabric together for you tomorrow, make a hammock, we’ll put it up in the living room.”  He hesitated, “if, well, if ya wanna stay, no obligation.”

“Nowhere else to go”, that grin again.  Sawyer could get used to that grin.

“Hey!”  He threw a carrot at him in mock protest.

“No, I’d like to stay, I really would.”

“Well alrighty then.”


	3. Chapter 3

The next few weeks saw Sam fit into Sawyer’s routine of sorts.  They went hunting, made so much easier with two pairs of eyes on the look out for monkey and boar; tilled the garden; hiked a part of the way up the mountains that hid Sawyer’s home from the shore.  After the first night of Sam’s snores vibrating through the floorboards, Sawyer was glad to hear the hammock silence him.  Now that the anger and tears were out of the way, Sawyer found that Sam was pretty fun to be around.  He made him laugh, concocting stories about fighting with baboons over the last mango, stories that had him in full belly laugh fits, late at night, clutching his stomach, slapping his thigh.  In turn, Sawyer seemed to provide a calming force that Sam sorely needed, a voice that said it was okay to just be him.  He still had that old bee charmer touch, soon Sawyer had more honey than he could eat in a month of Sundays.

Early one morning, he woke to find an empty hammock and Sam outside looking at the sky, hands on hips, legs apart like some mystic version of GI Joe.

“Rain’s comin’,” he called to him.

Sam turned around, “yeh.”

By the time the storm clouds had rolled over the top of the mountain, they’d covered the garden with palm leaves and twine, lashed down anything that could move to the sides of the cabin, stored enough fruit and meat for a week or so. 

Six hours of rain passed before the first “I am so bored” fell from Sam’s lips.

They were sitting in the living room, well, Sawyer was sitting in the rocking chair reading an old pulp novel, Sam was swinging in the hammock with ‘Exodus’ thrown on the floor after an hour’s reading.  The breeze through the doorway was cooling down the room after months of heat and simmering humidity but the drip of rain off the porch was starting to piss Sawyer off.  When he’d been alone, he was free to do crazyass things in the rain – run around in it, dance in it, sing show tunes for hours on end, anything to relieve the boredom.  Now Sam was here, he felt like he should be the grown-up.  For once in his life.

He sighed and stretched out, took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes.

“You read too much.”

“No such thing!”  He chewed on the arm of the glasses and watched Sam swinging from side to side, letting his arms drop over the sides of the hammock like he was scooping up water from an imaginary boat.  Well, what the hell.

“Ya that bored?”

“Yes! Please, let’s do something, anything!”

Sawyer stood up and stripped off his t-shirt, “come on then.”

Sam’s swinging stopped and he looked over at Sawyer, now down to his shorts.

“What are you doing?”

“What are we doing, ya mean?  We are going for a run”, he pulled his shorts off and Sam practically fell out of the hammock while trying to make a graceful exit from it.

“In the nude?”

“Well, yeh, less ya wanna stay here getting bored to death?”

Sam’s nope was muffled as he pulled off his vest, untied the sarong he’d taken to wearing.  He burst out laughing, as they stood there for a moment naked.  Sawyer moved to the porch and bent down, getting ready for an all nekkid five thousand metre dash.  Sam joined him, the drops from the porch catching in his hair as he bent down.

“Okay, first one to the pool, gentlemanly behavior only.  Ready? Set?”

Sam pushed him to the ground, shouted “go” and took off, bare ass disappearing into the bushes.

“Gentleman, my ass” grumped Sawyer as he stood back up and gave chase.

The rain was falling in big, heavy drops, lashing against Sawyer’s skin as he ran, pushing branches away, jumping over vines.  He could hear Sam whooping not too far in front of him, shouting “olly olly, oxenfree” at the top of his voice.  He laughed and sped up; a roar leaping out of him as he saw Sam’s back and then overtook him.  Pumping his fists in the air, he sidestepped a vine only to stumble on another, Sam shoving him to the side but mistiming, Sawyer grabbing his arm and shoving right back.  They carried on side by side almost all the way to the pool, bouncing off each other, faking moves to the side, laughing hard as the rain continued to crash down on them.  As soon as Sawyer saw the break in the trees ahead, he made a last dash for it, Sam on his heels, but as he reached the pool, Sam caught him round the waist and with a last roar echoing round the rocks, they both fell into the water head on, surfacing spluttering and laughing, splashing water at each other as thunder cracked overhead.  They dived down as lightning hit the jungle, firing a tree nearby.  Sam pulled some shells from the rocks, pulled Sawyer down to watch a big crab scuttle back into its hole.  They both surfaced and trod water.

“Ah, man, that was great, I  _really_  needed that”, Sam pushed his wet hair back.

Sawyer looked up as another clap of thunder rolled overhead, “not bored anymore?”

Sam grinned back at him, “definitely not!”

Sawyer winced as he heard another branch crack off a tree, “we better get back, this is getting worse.”

Sawyer’s mood darkened considerably as they trudged back to the cabin.  The wind was whipping up now and Sawyer was loath to get caught outside, naked, in the middle of a typhoon.  Every few steps, he looked back to check Sam was okay.  He was more than okay – majestic, brooding, mountain panther were the words that sprang to mind.  Wet Sam was much harder to deal with than dry, bored Sam.  Every step of Sawyer’s through the jungle kept up a plodding mantra of ‘don’t look too hard, don’t look too hard, don’t look too hard’ in every sense of the words. 

They ran up the steps on to the porch and pulled the wood over the doorframe behind them, fixing it with a crossbar across the inside of the frame.  They’d already battened down the windows and prepped the cabin, all they needed to do now was get dry and hope the house wasn’t gonna fly off to Oz.  Sam wrapped a blanket round himself while Sawyer put on the discarded sarong, pulling his hair back into a ponytail and lighting the fire.  He sat cross-legged in front of it, letting the heat warm his old bones.  Sam joined him on the floor, Sawyer acutely aware that he was still Wet Sam, just in a blanket now.  Sam shivered next to him.

“Hey”, he rubbed his arm through the blanket, “get dry, okay?  Don’t wantcha gettin’ sick.”

“No chance”, Sam shivered again and Sawyer noticed beads of sweat on his forehead, not rain anymore.

“Shit”, he muttered and stood up.  “Come on, up ya get, let’s get ya warmed up properly.”

Sam sneezed loudly as he stood up, “I’m okay.”

“Sure you are, just humor me, okay?”  Sawyer helped him into bed and threw some extra blankets over him.

“The hammock’s fine”, Sam mumbled as he snuggled down under the blankets.

“Bed’s better.”  Sawyer sat on the bed next to him and stroked his forehead.  Sam was burning up and anything medicinal that Sawyer might have gotten his hands on in the jungle had a raging tempest in front of it.  The thunder kept cracking overheard.  He moved to stand up but Sam caught his hand.

“Don’t go.”

“Not going nowhere, just getting some water for you.  I’ll be right back.”

“’Kay.”

In the thirty seconds it took him to grab a bottle of water and a cloth, Sam had thrown all the covers off the bed, inadvertently showing off an ass that was far too sinful for this situation.  Sawyer raised his eyes to the heavens and pulled the blankets over him again, poured some water on the cloth and pressed it to Sam’s forehead and finally, did his very, very best to ignore his now raging hard-on.  He sat on the bed, head against the wall and pulled one of Sam’s blankets over his chest.  The rain was banging the hell out of the roof and the thunder didn’t sound like it was going away anytime soon.  Sawyer moved the cloth on Sam’s head, turning it over to catch the coolness on the other side, Sam mumbling and moving closer to him.  He stroked his hair back from his face, cloudy blue eyes briefly opening and closing at the touch.  It was going to be a very long night.

===========

The next morning, Sawyer was very glad to see that those eyes were clear again as Sam woke up.  Sawyer had slumped down the bed during the night but he was still very much awake.  He smiled at Sam.

“How ya feelin’?”

“Awful, my head’s pounding.  Is it still raining?”

“Yep, storms eased off but still raining pretty hard.”  Sawyer was lying on his side facing Sam, an arm under his pillow.  He could feel the first drifts of sleep pulling at him.  “Ya fever’s broken, reckon it was just a chill.  Sleep now, you need it.”  Sawyer’s eyes started to close.

“You too.”

“’M’okay”, Sawyer just caught Sam’s whispered “sleep” before he was out like a light.

=======  

He woke to rain, no surprise there.  Sam was gone though and he shot upright, ready to run out and find him, maybe he was delirious again.

“Easy there cowboy.”  Sam was in the doorway, holding a steaming cup and thankfully fully dressed.  “I made us some of your herbal tea.”  He handed the cup to Sawyer, who leant back against the wall.

“Thanks, where’s yours?”

“Drank it a couple of hours ago, you’ve been asleep all day.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I figured you probably needed it after looking after me all night.”

“Yeh, ‘cos you were such a bad patient”, he rolled his eyes, “whining about everything you could think of, sheesh.”

“Really?”  Sam sat back on the bed, stuck his bare feet under the top blanket.

“Well…kinda, just the fever talkin’, that’s all.”

“What did I say?”

Sawyer sipped his tea, “mmm, good tea, thanks.”

“Sawyer!”

“What?”

“What did I say?”

Sawyer put the cup down on the floor, slid down under the covers again, turned on his side.  Sam followed suit, just that little bit too close for Sawyer’s comfort but at least there were three blankets separating them.

“Just stuff, nonsense really, ‘bout your mom.”

“What about her?”

“Look, it don’t matter none, you had a fever, don’t mean nothing.”

Sam reached over and flicked him on the back of the head.

“Ow!” Sam gave him a pointed look.  “Okay, you were saying that you killed her, like I said, don't mean nothing, just ramblings.”

Sam looked so shocked that Sawyer couldn’t help but put his arm round him.

“God, I didn’t realise, I…I didn’t…”

“Sam, it’s okay, you didn’t mean it.”  He stroked Sam’s hair back, slowly and calmly, something his mama used to do when he had nightmares as a boy.

“I did think that though, when I was younger.”

“Why would you ever think that?”

Sam closed his eyes, “before she got sick, we had a big argument.  I said I wished she were dead, she slapped me across the face for saying it, next day I wanted to apologise but she started coughing and then…” he sighed deeply.

“Sam, look at me.”  Sam opened his eyes, full of pain again, “you didn’t kill her, it just happened, just one of those things.”

“I guess I know that now, didn’t back then though.  Guess my delirious self knows me better than my normal self.” 

Sawyer moved mere inches to kiss him on the forehead, give him a reassuring squeeze.  When he pulled back, Sam still looked so lost, he didn’t realise he’d moved forward again and kissed him softly on the lips until it was too late and he was jerking away from Sam’s mouth.

“Shit, sorry, ‘m sorry,” he blurted out and scrambled out of bed for the front door, only to remember he’d battened it down yesterday.  Sam was right behind him and caught his arm as he hurried to pull the bar up and he turned around, ready to face another sock on the jaw.  Sam was right in his face, hand snaking round Sawyer’s hip to stop him bolting.

“Sawyer, I really think that…that...”, his eyes drifted down to Sawyer’s lips, “oh, sod it” and he pulled him forward and kissed him, surprise on Sawyer’s face soon melting away as he sank into the kiss, arms round Sam, rubbing his back, his neck.  The kiss deepened, Sam’s tongue flicking into his mouth, producing another raging hard-on that this time he really didn’t wanna ignore.  But the quiet gentleman he’d become was winning the battle of wills.

He pulled back but kept Sam close to him with a hand round his waist, “Sam, we can’t.”

Sam actually pouted, “why not?”

“Because…because…” Because I’m too old for you, Sawyer thought to himself, ‘cos I’m a bad man, ‘cos I don’t deserve this, ‘cos I haven’t had sex in more years than you’ve been alive and I’m just gonna ruin it, ‘cos…  He smiled at Sam and punctuated his answer with soft pulls to Sam’s bottom lip, “I can’t actually think of any good reason why not.”

Sam chuckled “good” and untied the knot on the sarong Sawyer was still wearing from yesterday, “’cos I’ve thought of a great way to relieve the boredom from all this rain.”

“You cheesy fu-“ Sawyer’s words caught in his throat as Sam knelt down and ran his hands along Sawyer’s cock.  He turned those midnight blue eyes up to him, “Sawyer, I want to lick you clean.”

“Jesus, yes.”  Sawyer leant back against the door, feeling the rough wood under his palms then stroked Sam’s cheek and hair.  The rain beat against the roof as Sam leaned forward and nestled against Sawyer’s pubes.  He licked a wet stripe down his cock and sucked one of his balls into his mouth, Sawyer’s knees wavering under the sensation.  Sam licked back up his cock and mouthed the end, eyelashes flitting as he looked up to Sawyer before taking him all the way down his throat, cheeks hollowing as he pulled back again.  As he ran a hand under Sawyer’s t-shirt, Sawyer grabbed it through the fabric and held on with both hands over his heart, now gasping for breath as Sam sped up, his other hand holding an ass cheek in a vice-like grip.  There was no need, he wasn’t going anywhere, wrapping his fingers round Sam’s covered hand, he thought briefly, well, maybe going to hell for now just as Sam curled a finger into his ass and he exploded down Sam’s throat, too long imagining this, no longer accepting it would happen ever again.  Sam sat back, licking him clean, just as he’d promised.  Sawyer slumped down the door and landed hard on his ass.  His heart was beating a mile a minute and he still had hold of Sam’s hand over his heart.  A few seconds of shared breathing and they both surged forward to kiss one another, Sawyer tasting himself on Sam’s tongue, feeling it entwine with his.

Sawyer reached between them and quickly pulled down Sam’s shorts, stroking his cock, pushing him down to the floor so he could take him in his mouth.  Looking but not touching had driven him to distraction, now he wanted to feel all of him, sucking his cock then moving down and licking his balls.  Sam pulled off his shirt and raised his legs, hooked them over Sawyer’s shoulders, gripped against him with his feet.  Sawyer licked round his hole, dipped his tongue in, pulling on his cock, Sam’s ass and back lifting off the floor as he came, shouting “fuckgoddammit” in one long breath.  Sawyer, sweating, lowered Sam’s legs and leant back against the door, Sam open before him, breathing hard, eyes closed, hand clasped over his own heart now.  He laughed and lay down next to him, wrapping a leg round Sam’s and caressing his hand, murmured “got my hands on that ass after all.  Could really use a cigarette right about now though.”

“Huh, I wouldn’t know”, he turned to face Sawyer, held onto his hand.

“Good, bad habit, it’ll kill ya.”

“Or not”, Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeh, or not.  Let’s get you back into bed, wouldn’t want ya gettin' sick again.”

“You coming with?”

“You bet I am.”


	4. Chapter 4

“What happened to you?”

Sawyer raised an eyebrow, “ya wanna talk about this now?”

Sam smiled sleepily at him and moved across his chest, arms folded under him, sweat between them mingling.  He looked up at him with those doe eyes, “no cigarettes around here so yes, I do.”

He brushed Sam’s hair out of his eyes, looked up, “look, God’s talkin’.”

From the window opposite the bed, where a piece of wood had broken off, Sawyer could see the jungle, the edges of the slopes that led to the mountains behind the cabin and the sun shining out below the rain clouds, rays of light shining down to the ground.

Sam turned his head to look, his cock shifting pleasantly against Sawyer’s as he slightly turned then lay down fully again, “yeh, do you believe that?”

“Don’t know.”  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, making Sam’s hair fall into his eyes again.  Maybe he just liked touching his hair, his face, what of it?  “Okay, ya wanna bedtime story?”

“Sure.”

Sawyer reached down and pulled the blanket up so it covered Sam’s shoulders then turned his gaze back to the sky outside.

“Long, long time ago…I was a pretty shitty excuse for a human being.”

Sam’s eyes widened, “really?”

“Ya gonna interrupt or ya wanna hear this?”

“Sorry, go on.”

“I had a pretty crappy childhood, not using that as an excuse, just the way it was.  Everything stayed gold until I was eight years old, ma got her head turned by some guy, turned out to be a conman, tricked her out of what little we had, pa found out, one evening, liquored up, shot her, shot himself.”

“Shit.”

“Ain’t the worst of it.  He wanted me too, mama hid me from him, I dunno, just hid after that, all the time.”  He cleared his throat, hadn’t told no one all of it, not even Sayid.

“What do you mean?”

“My aunt and uncle took me in, did their best but they were hard farm people, not used to kids, hid from them, did my best to hide at school, not get noticed.”  Sawyer smiled as he remembered one thing, “had an imaginary friend for a while, name of Sam.”

“Oh, you are pulling my leg!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”  He pulled Sam up for a kiss.  And he meant it, couldn’t lie to him now if he tried, just couldn’t do it.  “When your mom was pregnant, we were talking once, just stupid stuff and I told her about my imaginary friend, dunno why, just popped in there.  Imagine my surprise when your dad passed you to me for the first time and told me what they’d called you, made my heart glad.  Ya looked like a little blackbird when you were a baby, big tuft of soft black hair and those big dark eyes.”

“Mom said you sang to me after dad died, you babysat a lot back then.”

“Ha!  The Beatles’ ‘Blackbird’, old song by a really old band.  Sayid used to…well, gettin’ ahead of myself now.  Anyway, I ended up in foster care, took off as soon as I could, snuck out a window and hitched a ride cross-country.  Did that for a while, sleeping rough, eating old food outta trashcans, watched kids go to school, wives to work, snuck into houses to raid fridges, grab a snatch of sleep on a comfy couch.  At seventeen, my birthday actually, I was begging outside a hotel in St. Louis, the usual shit, sitting on a mailbox, asking folks to spare a buck for a beer.  This really well dressed man came out the hotel, stopped to light a cigarette, offered me one, looked me up and down, said ‘come on kid, I’ll buy ya dinner’.  Name of Clarence T. Walsh, Clicky to his acquaintances.  I got a steak dinner and a damn good talking to.  Turned out Clicky had been like me once, I couldn’t quite believe it, saw his fancy suit and tie, no way.  He showed me what he’d done to get where he’d gotten in life.  He’d conned, conned women and men outta money, property, cars, everything, all with a handsome face and a quick wit.  When he first told me, a piece a me hated him for it, wanted to beat the crap outta him, but the hungry side a me, the side that was sick of sleeping in doorways, that side won out.”

“So you became the one thing that had destroyed your family?”

“Yeh, stupid, believe me, I know.  But Clicky taught me everything he knew and it came so easily to me.  Conning’s just another way of hiding, disguising yourself as somebody else, someone better.  Spent the next twenty years doing it, got caught sometimes, spent some time in jail, bad things happened, ended up here.”

“What bad things?”

“When my mama died, swore I’d find that conman, hunt him down.  Thought I found him in Australia, killed him, turned out he was the dupe for someone else, not the man I wanted at all.  Got kicked out of the country for minor stuff, plane crashed and here we are.”

Sam sat up and stared at Sawyer, hurt in his eyes, “you killed someone?”

“Yep, more than someone.  Finally killed the real man that’d conned my mama too.  I won’t deny it, felt the best and worst I ever felt when I did it.  Killin’ don’t change nothing, even in this place, just keeps ya hiding.  You hate me now?”

“No”, Sam said quietly, “just...just feels like you’re talking about a completely different person.”

“I am.  Don’t recognise that man anymore, all twisted up with shame and hate.  Took a long time,” he choked out a laugh, “a  _really_  long time.  Still not there yet, not completely.  Still Sawyer, don’t know if l’il Jamie’s ever coming back.”

“Jamie?”

Sawyer held out his hand, “James C. Ford, pleased to meetcha.”

Sam shook his hand and lay down again, rested his head on Sawyer’s shoulder and held onto Sawyer’s pinky finger, “James”, he mulled it over, “doesn’t sound right.”

“I know, still Sawyer, see?”  He rubbed his finger along Sam’s bottom lip.  “Ya sleepy yet or ya want more?”

“Who were the Others?”

“I really don’t know.  All I know is, they put us through hell, and we gave ‘em some back.  In the end, nobody won.  I could say  _I_ lost but it’s taken a while to figure out that’s relative too.”

“What you said to me when I first got here, ‘last man standing’.  I always wondered, why didn’t you leave when you had the chance?”

Another sigh, “I tried to, more than a few times.  Island kept pulling me back.  It let the rest of ‘em go, one way or the other.”

“Can I ask?  About Sayid?”

Sawyer smiled sadly, “we had our time but it was cut short.  He died, in the last great fight with the Others.  I missed him so much, everyday, for so long.  Your heart heals but there’s always a small scar that remains.  His is next to the one for my mama and the one for Clementine, damn stupid name that it is, my daughter.”

“Really?”

“Yep, like to think she’s still out there somewhere, if there’s anything out there any more.  Hope she’s lived a better life than I managed.”

“You’re doing alright now, aren’t you?”

Sawyer shook his head, “don’t know, don’t know if you ever really know.  Enough talking, come ‘ere.”

Sam moved up the bed, sat astride Sawyer, kissed his lips, sucked on his bottom lip, a silent thank you to each pull, each stroke, saying thank you Sawyer for letting me in, a gratitude that Sawyer paid back tenfold.

  
======== 

They stayed in bed until daylight came around again, discovering every piece of each other, laughing together, sweating, coming.  Sawyer woke at dawn, realised the rain had finally stopped and now the overwhelming noise in the house was only Sam’s light snore.  Sam had wrapped himself around him, his hand on his heart again, leg thrown across his thigh, hair in his eyes.  He turned over and pushed his hair back, watched his eyes moving under the lids, long dark lashes flickering to some distant dream.  The shock of what he’d just done came to him in a second.  He gently pushed Sam off him and got out of bed, grabbing a sarong off the floor.  Sam snuffled once then rolled onto his front, an arm stretched out where Sawyer had lain.  He pulled the bar of the door up as quietly as he could, moved the door back onto the porch, sat down on the steps.  The jungle looked fresh and glistening but Sawyer knew he’d be creating new trails and cutting broken branches down for weeks.  Sawyer couldn’t bear to hope that he might now have a partner to help him clear up. 

Jesus, what had he been thinking?  Well, clearly his upstairs brain hadn’t been thinking too clearly at all.  Sam was so much younger than him and so naïve, it’d be like turning a good apple bad.  He could still have a life with everyone else – what could he offer him?  Fuck all and then some, that was what.  He thought back to a film he’d seen, a long time ago now, the hero never growing old, finding love then having to watch his love grow old and die, being left alone and heartbroken.  He wouldn’t be able to bear it, watching the vitality in Sam’s eyes grown dim.  He’d seen too much death already.  He’d been stupid, stupid not to think of that, feeling such peacefulness as he’d entered Sam, everything had been wiped clean, a new slate.  Now, he was lost, confused and tortured in the knowledge that he couldn’t keep Sam, no, he  _wouldn’t_  keep him, he deserved more than that, more than just Sawyer.

“I could hear your brain ticking from the bedroom.”

Sawyer looked up, Sam was standing over him, face drawn in concern.  He sat down next to him and rubbed his knee.

“You okay?”

Sawyer sighed and shook his head, “not so much, no.”

“It doesn’t bother me, you know.”

Sawyer turned to face him, “what doesn’t?”

“The older man thing”, Sam smirked, there was that lightness again.

“Sam, it’s not just ‘older man’, it’s ‘should be dead man’.”

Sam leaned forward and kissed him hard, grabbing his jaw, instant hard-on time again.  Sawyer was amazed he hadn’t fainted in the last forty-eight hours, the amount of blood that had continually rushed southward.  Reluctantly, he pushed Sam away, “Sam, I -“

“What are you so worried about?  I’ll get old and die and you’ll still be here?”

“ _Jesus_ ”, Sawyer stood up and started pacing.

“Mom told me something once -“

“If you say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, you’ll get a slap upside the head!”

Sam stood up and got in Sawyer’s way, forcing him to stop pacing and look him in the eye, grabbing his shoulders, “Sawyer…love?” the corner of his mouth curled upwards.

“Shut up.”  He gravitated towards him again for a kiss.

Sam rested his forehead against his, “you going to let me speak?”

“Sure.”

“Mom told me to give my heart, my whole heart, every day because you never know when the day might end.”

“Your ma was one smart cookie.”

“Yes, she was.  Sawyer, I want this, whatever this is, I want us to figure it out together.”

“Sam, I can’t bear to think of you gone.”

Sam kissed him on the mouth, his jaw, his neck, murmured, “then don’t think about it.”

Sawyer lifted his head, “that simple?”

“Yes, that simple.  What have you been doing for the last thirty, forty, fifty odd years?  Waking up, living, going to sleep and repeat.  Are you happy doing that?”

“Yep.”

“So, are you happier doing all that with me?”

Fucker. 

“Yes, Sam, I really am happier doing all that with you.”  He walked back into the house, pulled Sam with him, onto his bed, into his heart, fucker.


	5. Epilogue

Time passed, life passed, they woke up, lived, went to sleep, repeat.  They never ventured into town, didn’t even wonder if it was still there.  Years passed, seasons came and went.  One morning, Sawyer woke as usual to a warm blanket called Sam.  Sam’s features had softened, a few laughter lines had appeared and Sawyer saw a middle-aged man sleeping but he knew that as soon as he woke, those midnight blue eyes would shine just as brightly as a younger man's once had long ago.  Sawyer gently moved Sam off him and stretched as he got out of bed.  Pulling on a pair of shorts, he listened to the birds outside, grabbed a hair band and pulled his hair into a ponytail.

“Hey, you’re going gray.”

Sawyer turned around to face those eyes and knelt back onto the bed to steal a kiss, “and good mornin' to you too.”

“No, I mean it, look.”  Sam pulled a lock of hair forward, the whole lock was gray, “what do you think it means?”

Sawyer didn’t want to think it, couldn’t even allow himself to entertain the thought, “it’s nothin'.”

Sam pulled him back into bed, “you sure?”

“Dunno, don’t care.”

  
 But the next morning, as Sawyer inspected another new lock of gray hair and new lines under his eyes, he started to care, started to realise what it meant, and that was it, he started laughing, laughing so hard he had to sit down on the floor, doubled up, slapping his thigh, tears streaming down his face.

Sam came into the kitchen, a dead rabbit in his hand, “what’s wrong with you?”

Sawyer wiped his eyes and patted the floor next to him for Sam to sit down, “guess I’ve done all the atoning there is to do, get to grow old with you now.”

Sam was astonished, “really?”

“Reckon I better start hunting for a natural form of Viagra.”

“What’s Viagra?”

“Show ya in ten years.”  He kissed him hard on the lips, felt that familiar heat rising and hugged Sam to him, looked up to the heavens then out to the green jungle beyond the doorway and whispered “thank you.”

THE END


End file.
